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As European leaders return from summer holiday to hold their first summit amid multiple international crises — in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine — the bloc's two economic heavyweights, France and Germany, are also emerging as the EU's foreign policy leaders.

Instead of competing for primacy, experts say Paris and Berlin are helping to craft a more concerted EU diplomacy.

Little seems to be going right these days for France's embattled President Francois Hollande — except for the country's foreign policy, that is.

After launching military operations to tamp down violence in Mali and the Central African Republic, the French government has now set its sights on the Middle East. This month it prodded European foreign ministers away from their vacations and back to Brussels, where they agreed on arming Kurdish forces in Iraq who are fighting Islamic State insurgents.

Paris also acknowledged having sent weapons to Syria's opposition and opened its doors to Iraqi Christian refugees. Now Hollande is pushing to host an international conference on terrorism next month.

Addressing French ambassadors in Paris, President Hollande said France is acting on many foreign policies, both diplomatically and militarily. On Syria, for example, he said France had been right in pushing for military action last year against the Syrian regime.

In a commentary earlier this year, former French diplomat and deputy U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno said France seems to be one of the few European Union countries that still has foreign policy ambitions. Other European countries seem to be looking inwards, he said, and abandoning the idea of trying to shape today's world.

But one other European country is looking outward: Germany has taken the lead in trying to defuse the Ukraine crisis and, in a break from post-war diplomacy, agreed to send weapons to Iraq.

According to Edouard Tetreau, director of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the region's two economic heavyweights and former foes may be key to crafting a more concerted EU foreign policy.

"It is about a shared interest," said Tetreau. "It's also about [Foreign] Ministers [Laurent] Fabius and [German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter] Steinmeier wanting to make sure that European diplomacy moves ahead in the right direction. It's not about rivalry, it's about closer and closer cooperation."

The two countries have carved out separate but seemingly complementary spheres of influence in addressing current conflicts. It's not surprising, says Steven Ekovich, international politics professor at the American University of Paris, that Germany has taken a leadership role on Ukraine, spearheading the push for tougher EU sanctions on Russia.

"There's no way that France can play a more important role in Ukraine than Germany, or in Russia for that matter. Germany is their backyard - or make that their front yard," stated Ekovich.

France's backyard is sub-Saharan Africa.

"There, France takes the lead. They should take the lead. They have a responsibility to take the lead when it's a question of humanitarian intervention," Ekovich noted.

In the Middle East, France has marked a U-turn from its 2003 opposition to the American-led invasion of Iraq. Last year — under a starkly different landscape — it pushed for airstrikes against the government of Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria. President Hollande has acknowledged it has also armed the country's moderate opposition.

Today, it is also sending weapons to Iraqi Kurds.

For Tetreau, France "got it right" both a decade ago — and today.

"This is not about luck or bragging about diplomatic moments. It is about intelligence on what is happening on the ground. It takes decades of presence on the ground and understanding what is happening in the region to get it right," he said.

In some areas, French and German national interests are converging. Paris estimates hundreds of its citizens have joined jihadists in Iraq and Syria, posing a security threat back home when they return. It's a fear shared by Germany, and helped shape Berlin's decision to arm Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State.

On some basic issues, Paris and Berlin remain far apart. Hollande is weak at home while German Chancellor Angela Merkel is strong. France has long balked at Germany's tough austerity prescriptions for Europe. But this year, Hollande revamped his economic policies, embracing some of the belt-tightening measures. That turnaround helped fuel this week's overhaul of the French government — and, some observers say, may strengthen Germany's stature in Europe against a weakened France.

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by: Not Again from: Canada

August 31, 2014 8:43 PM

..."Germany has taken the lead in trying to defuse the Ukraine crisis..." this will lead to a historic disaster for the Ukrainian people; the German Chancellor is well on its way of throwing the interests of Ukraine under the bus. Germany has done the least to deter Russia, on the contrary, every step of the way through this crisis, Germany has vacilated, tamped down any expectations of strong meaningful sanctions, has gone out of its way to obstruct, twart, reduce, fight and undermine the US' proposals; even now, they are taking a continued slow down/ignore, stand and look the other way, as the situation for Ukraine continues to deterriorate. Remember Mali? The German chancellor was shamed into providing some assistance to France during the Mali crisis, and it was one of the last, of the major EU countries, to back France in its Mali operation; it is doing exaclty the same, in the Iraq crisis, where Germany is looking for a way out of having to confront IS, or even contribute military resources to the Kurds or the impending critical battles ahead. To this day Germany has not even made a decision on providing defensive weapons to the Kurs; if they had waited for Germany's help, tens of thousands would have been enslaved by the IS terrorists. Ukraine is very unfortunate that Germany appears to have been allocated their file; it will surely be neglected, and appeasement, as usual, will be the cardinal underpining policy of the German influence/effort. Germany has taken itself out of deploying/standing up its own credible military deterrent, just look at the state of its armed forces = under equiped, under-manned, under-payed, under-trained, no serious modernization programs under way and worse of all, even most Germans no longer support their own forces, for they have let their politicians decimate them and make them irrelevant in society- because they have been indoctrinated to ride on the back of the US security system! Not a good day for the Ukrainian people, in my view.

At this year's annual South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas, some musicians from Mali were on hand to promote a film about how their lives were upturned by jihadists who destroyed ancient treasures in the city of Timbuktu and prohibited anyone from playing music under threat of death. As VOA’s Greg Flakus reports from Austin, some are afraid to return to their hometowns even though the jihadists are no longer in control there.

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At this year's annual South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas, some musicians from Mali were on hand to promote a film about how their lives were upturned by jihadists who destroyed ancient treasures in the city of Timbuktu and prohibited anyone from playing music under threat of death. As VOA’s Greg Flakus reports from Austin, some are afraid to return to their hometowns even though the jihadists are no longer in control there.

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American warplanes joined Iraq's battle against the so-called 'Islamic State' in northern Iraq late Wednesday, as Iraqi ground troops launched a massive assault on Tikrit. Analysts say the offensive could take the coalition a step further towards Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State forces. Others say it could also deepen already-dangerous sectarian tensions in the region. VOA's Heather Murdock has more from Cairo.

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The continued fighting in eastern Ukraine and the shelling of civilian neighborhoods seem to be pushing more men to join the separatist fighters. Many of the new recruits are residents of Ukraine made bitter by new grievances, as well as old. VOA's Patrick Wells reports.

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Islamic State fighter, a prisoner of Kurdish YPG forces, asked his family asking for forgiveness: "I destroyed myself and I destroyed them along with me." The Syrian youth was one of two detainees who spoke to VOA’s Kurdish Service about the path they chose; their names have been changed and identifying details obscured. VOA's Zana Omer reports.

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U.S. federal law enforcement agents arrested two suburban Chicago men accused of trying to join ISIS overseas, while also plotting attacks in the United States. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from the Midwest state of Illinois, one of those arrested is a soldier of the Illinois National Guard.

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Traditional push-rim wheelchairs create a lot of stress for arm, shoulder and neck muscles and joints. A redesigned chair, based on readily available bicycle technology, radically increases mobility while reducing the physical effort. VOA’s George Putic reports.

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Beatrice Yardolo was to make history as Liberia’s last Ebola patient. Liberians recently started counting down 42 days, the period that has to go by without a single new infection until the World Health Organization can declare a country Ebola-free. That countdown stopped on March 20 when there was another new case of Ebola, making Yardolo’s story a reminder that Ebola is far from over. Benno Muchler reports from Monrovia.

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Indigenous communities in Cambodia's Ratanakiri province say the government’s economic land concession policy is taking away their land and traditional way of life, making many fear that their identity will soon be lost. Local authorities, though, have denied this is the case. VOA's Say Mony went to investigate and filed this report, narrated by Colin Lovett.

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One of the films that drew big crowds last week at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, tells the story of the last human being to stand on the moon, U.S. astronaut Eugene Cernan. It has been 42 years since Cernan returned from the moon and he laments that no one else has gone there since. VOA’s Greg Flakus reports.